26 October 2015

A few days ago, in a post titled, "Recognizing the 'I' in 'TEAM'," I wrote about how each individual brings something different to the team. I said, "a good team is composed of multiple individuals, each of whom brings a unique combination of talents, training, skills, experience, and perspective to the effort."

Then I remembered this quote by Vince Lombardi, one of the greatest football coaches of the 20th century, who said:

"Individual commitment to a group effort— that's what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work."

Understand that I am not a big football fan—and I never have been—so I have no idea where I actually ran across this quotation. But it aligns so completely with my own beliefs about how teams are built and how they function, and the fact that different individuals bring different contributions to the team effort, that I copied the quote into a file I keep of interesting quotes.

(Validation is a great thing, and the source from which it arises doesn't matter.)

Did you ever watch a movie and then read or listen to a review, and wonder if you and the critic saw the same movie? That's because every individual takes in information through a different set of filters based on experience, age, gender, education, priorities, and a host of other criteria. And all our (outgoing) actions are ultimately based on how we process, store, and use this (incoming) information.

No two people are exactly the same—studies have shown that even "identical" twins will respond differently to the same stimulus, will absorb and catalog information differently, and will even differ in how they value and prioritize specific information. So it should be no surprise that different people bring different personal value propositions to a team.

In fact, a good team leader selects team his/her members based on those personal value propositions and how they align with the needs of the project on which the team is working, or in the case of A/E marketers, the project for which the team is competing.

Think of it this way: If your firm wanted to create a proposal to manage a major planning, design, and construction effort for a large municipal water system, would you want a proposal team consisting solely of water pipeline engineers? or would you also want your proposal team to include people with expertise in water treatment, utility system operations, city planning, utility construction, GRAPHIC DESIGN AND MARKETING?

Every individual selected for every one of those technical specialties will have a personal value proposition that is based on training, skills, experience, and perspective unique to that person—a collection of value propositions required for the creation of a winning proposal.

The ultimate success of the team is measured by how all those individual combinations are able to mesh—to work together, to support each other, to fill in the blanks in other team members' combinations—to achieve the goal of developing a winning value proposition for the team and a winning proposal based on that value proposition.

23 October 2015

People are always saying "there's no 'I' in team!" But I beg to differ.

While I agree that there is no letter "I" in the word "team," there are as many I's in a team as there are team members!

A good team is composed of multiple Individuals, each of whom brings a unique combination of talents, training, skills, experience, and perspective to the effort. This combination makes up the individual's personal "value proposition."

Understanding each individual's value proposition enables a team leader to match the skills of various individuals to the assignment's specific requirements; to assemble all the talents, training, skills, experience and perspectives required to complete the project successfully; and to ensure that the team can respond quickly to any surprise the project might deliver.

To be the most effective team member one can be, an A/E marketer must do the following:

Identify the components of his/her value proposition;

Identify the additional components he/she wants to acquire to enhance his/her value proposition, and how to acquire them;

Identify ways and opportunities to communicate his/her value proposition to potential team leaders in order to secure desirable team assignments; and

Identify ways to leverage this new, broader value proposition and the assignments it enables for the ultimate enhancement of his/her career in the A/E industry.

Growing up in a Jewish household, my father often counseled me to find a good "rabbi" in any job situation. What he meant was that I should identify a rising firm leader and "hitch my wagon to their star." In other words, if I allied myself with the right mentor or sponsor, my career would rise as theirs did.

I give the same advice to young A/E marketers today. But I tell them to look for multiple stars on whose teams they want to be, and then develop the right value proposition and "sell" that proposition to these stars to get the teaming assignments that will advance their careers.

I tell them that understanding their own value proposition could help them avoid team assignments where they are likely to be less than effective, assignments that would reflect negatively on their value proposition.

When an ambitious A/E marketer reaches the point where there are no more opportunities to grow, to stretch, in their current position it is time to do one of three things:

try to grow their current positioninto one where new challenges will enable them to find new enhancements to their value proposition; or

look for, or create, a new position in their current companythat provides the challenges they seek; or

look for a position in another companythat will give them new challenges to enhance their value proposition.

In my 37 years in the A/E industry, I have never met an A/E marketer who was lazy. Every A/E marketer I know is always looking for new challenges to keep him/her succeeding in and enjoying their professional situation, wherever those challenges can be found.

I have been very lucky in my A/E career. With one exception, I have worked for people who would allow me to try new things if I could demonstrate a benefit to the company. When I succeeded, the new activity became part of my ongoing job description, and part of my new value proposition.

04 October 2015

Some years ago, I attended a US Army Corps of Engineers seminar on a new initiative called FAR 12. The overall goal of the initiative was to get government agencies to do business the way businesses do business.

For example, if a purchasing agent wanted to buy toilet paper for a military base, his/her first call should not be to Kimberly Clark or Scott Paper, but to someone who buys toilet paper for some other large institution, like a major university, and find out how THEYbuy toilet paper.

It was thought that this would help reduce government expenses (i.e. no more $400 toilet seats) and make it easier for private sector firms to work with government agencies.

It was also hoped that this initiative would encourage purchasing and procurement staff to write their own RFQs and RFPs instead of "borrowing" similar ones and using them verbatim. The instructor used this example:

An agency had to purchase a piece of equipment (with maintenance), and had determined that Motorola made exactly the equipment needed. The purchasing agent borrowed an RFP, added specifications for his current need, published the RFP and waited for bids. The due date came and went, with no Motorola bid. After selecting another supplier, the procurement officer called his Motorola contact and asked why they had not bid. Motorola's responses was:

This equipment requires recalibration every 30 days, but your RFP stipulated weekly recalibration. Those three additional calibrations every month would eliminate our profit. So we decided to pass. By the way, why did you specify weekly recalibration?

The procurement person was at a loss to answer; he could think of no reason for this specification. He asked the technical person, who said he had only added the specifications for this equipment. Apparently, nobody read the rest of the RFP to see what was there from previous uses. The weekly recalibration had been a "leftover."

Unfortunately, this happens all too often. Procurement officers use an existing RFQ or RFP rather than creating a new one, without looking at what's already in the document.

Regardless of why it happens, too many RFQs and RFP are "borrowed" rather than created, and pre-existing text is rarely reread, so a "new" solicitation can squeak through with multiple requirements leftover from previous usages.

Many of these situations ultimately get corrected through the official procedure for questions and answers, and I guess many procurement officers think that an addendum, or multiple addenda, will be cheaper than making the effort to get it right the first time. But there is a cost to such an attitude, a cost that must be paid by the agencies, the A/E industry or both. I have experienced a few RFPs with more than 10 addenda each, many of those addenda requiring changes in the team's firm composition, or the addition or elimination of technical staff.

Here are some questions I've never seen tracked in the A/E industry:

How many A/E firms have to make significant firm teaming or staffing changesas these addenda appear, with all the costs of doing so?

How many A/E firms have to make significant content (text, tables, graphics) changesas these addenda appear, with all the costs of doing so?

Rather than make these changes and suffer the costs they incur, how many A/E firms simply remove such agencies from their "watch" listsbecause they view the agencies as "careless" due to the number of addenda their RFQs or RFPs generally go through?

It seems to me that public agencies who borrow RFQs/RFPs without checking to see what's already included do themselves a great disservice by discouraging many fine firms from competing for that agency's work. And that's in addition to the cost of the extra staff time it takes to correct and republish the solicitation.

Perhaps they need a more than gentle reminder that if they haven't got time to do it right the first time, the certainly don't have the time to do it a second time, or a third, or . . .

02 October 2015

One of my best design clients recently asked me to prepare a response to a public agency's Request for Proposals. The project involved extending sewer service to a small area not currently served, where the lots were too small to allow the permitting of septic tank systems. The project seemed simple enough. And the RFP was simple and straightforward.

On the second page of the RFP, the first bullet item in the Scope of Work was the preparation of the bid packet. I assumed that this meant design and preparation of plans, specifications and cost estimates (PS&E) for the project.

However, on the next page, the three items in the Project Summary were "Summarize the problem to be addressed," "Identify the location of each activity," and "Identify the actions to resolve the problems." Under this last item, it said "Construction shall consist of the installation of..." and it proceeded to enumerate the number of linear feet of pipe and the pipeline diameter, the number of manholes, etc.

There was no mention of any design activities in Item 3. This made me wonder if the design phase was already complete and the project just involved the installation and testing of pipe. I emailed the agency's purchasing agent yesterday and have not received a response so far, even though the submittal is due in one week.

In a related "pet peeve,"I have close to 60 public sector agency websites that I check once or twice each week. These include cities, counties, transit and miscellaneous agencies, as well as fedbizopps (fbo.gov). At a number of these sites, when you click the RFP or RFQ link, you get to see requests for proposals to study, to design, AND to construct. And the construction project links can also be accessed through the "Bids" link. You have to click to open the individual document to discover whether the project is a design or construction assignment.

Looking for potential project leads takes more time than it would had the pursuit titles included more than just the name of the facility. For example, I'd like to see:

RFP for Traffic Studies for Main Street

RFQ/RFP for Design of Improvements to Main Street

or

IFB for Construction of Main Street Improvements

This would make things much easier for those of us looking for potential projects, whether we are in-house marketing or business development staff or outside consultants who look for leads to bring their A/E/C clients.

Unfortunately, many who see their job responsibilities as other than communication don't seem to understand the importance of choosing the correct word. And not using any words at all can be as inefficient—for both the owner/agency and the A/E/C firm—as using the wrong words (calling something an RFP when it is actually an invitation to bid on a construction project.

Somehow, I suspect that, as long as purchasing/procurement staff borrow existing RFQs and RFPs rather than writing them from scratch, we will always have solicitations that don't quite say what they need to, or that will require the development and submittal of information that actually has no relevance to the project or product at hand.

17 September 2015

It was a very large proposal, and very important for my firm. If we had been selected, it would have been my firm's first million-dollar contract as a prime consultant.

A little while after the submittal deadline, our PIC received a phone call from the client's project manager. Our proposal had been thrown out for being "non-compliant," because one signed form was missing.

Damn! Maybe I should have used a checklist!

I thank Ginger Williams of the BD Collaborativefor making a "checklist believer" out of me. Shortly before the incident described above, Ginger led an SMPS Dallas chapter session on how to manage the marketing effort. She stressed creating and using checklists to manage the many moving pieces of a pursuit.

Until that session, it had never occurred to me that checklists would be useful. After that session, I thought checklists might be useful.

After the incident described above, I knew that checklists were the only way to keep all the pieces moving until they came together in the final step of the pursuit.

Even if we have talked with the client about the project in advance of the RFQ/RFP, we still can't make a final Go/No Go decision until there is detailed information on scope, submittal and project schedules, potential fees, and other items. Once the RFQ/RFP appears, the first read takes my employer or client through the final Go/No Go evaluation. Once there is a "Go," the pursuit begins.

Now I create a checklist on every SOQ and proposal, starting with my second reading of the solicitation, which happens right after the "Go" decision.

I read the solicitation noting every requirement about submittal schedule, deadline for questions, document contents, MBE/WBE/HUB/8(a) participation goals, technical scope, subconsultant needs, evaluation criteria, scoring, and packaging and labeling of the final delivery.

I list each form separately, because some will need only to be filled in while others will require a signature, and possibly notarization.

I put this information into a table, fleshing out the proposal schedule to specify individual parts with names and due dates. Then I make sure items are in the proper sequence, (i.e. long-lead items, like the project approach, are not at the bottom of the list).

When completed, I distribute the table to the proposal teamso everyone knows his/her deadline and how it might impact other team members.

By the way, if an Addendum includes a significant change in scope or schedule, we might even revisit the Go/No Go decision.

Updating the checklist as draft items come in and are reviewed, revised, and finalized helps me track the status of each piece and the overall effort.

Once the assignments are in motion, I prepare delivery envelopes or boxes with labels as specified in the solicitation. I make sure there are no delivery prohibitions, such as the US Postal Service's instruction to deliver by hand, courier, or USPS method. They will not accept a proposal delivered by FedEx, UPS, or any other competitor. This information goes into the checklist

If the package is to be delivered by courier, I check the courier's rules. For example, if a delivery crosses a county line, that might allow the courier to add an hour to the delivery time. So the one-hour delivery you order can take two hours and be considered "on-time" from the courier's standpoint, even though it may miss the deadline.

Ever since I learned my lesson with that forgotten form, and started making checklists, I have wondered how I ever managed a proposal without checklists.

31 August 2015

Second—to the extent possible, give each an assignment (or assignments) in line with their skill sets and interests.

Third—give them the best equipment possible and show them where their resources are.

Fourth—help them feel secure enough to fail occasionally, as long as they learn something useful from every failure.

Last—get out of their wayand let them do the job(s) for which you hired them.

I always figured that if I was smart enough to recognize that I couldn't do everything myself, and to hire people who have the required technical knowledge to do the job, who are passionate about what they do, who are motivated to succeed, and who are committed to excellence, they will each star in their respective roles.

And, incidentally, I will come off looking like a hero for hiring all these top quality folks in the first place.

General George S. Patton, a recognized manager of people, once said:

"Never tell people HOW to do things. Tell then WHAT to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity."

I believe him.

After all, if I have to tell someone HOW to do their assigned task, then I haven't hired someone with the necessary technical knowledge.

In my 45+ year work life, I have heard (and witnessed) a number of things about managers. For instance:

A first-rate manager hires people who are smarter than he or she is.

A first-rate manager hires people who have knowledge and/or skills he/she lacks.

A first-rate manager hires people who are so good that if he/she went on vacation for three weeks, nobody would realize he/she was gone.

A first-rate manager is not afraid to hire people who are talented enough to replace him/her.

I have written recently about my desire to share my accumulated knowledge, to give those coming up behind me the benefit of my experience as an A/E/C marketer.

But I also like being around people who can teach me new things. And given the rate at which technology changes, most younger people have a lot to teach me.

So I try to hire, and recommend that my clients hire, people who have great technical skills, who are committed to their own excellent performance, who have a strong desire to keep learning, and who have a strong passion for accomplishing the things to which they are committed.

Such young people will succeed at virtually any task you set them within the range of their technical knowledge and skills, and they will continually extend that range as they continue to learn on the job.

20 August 2015

As an A/E marketer with more than 20 years of experience in a variety of management roles, I have developed a management style that tries to make all team members comfortable enough to offer their own ideas.

The fact is that every team member has a contribution worth considering, if the team leader can get them to open up and share. Everyone has a "horse of a different color" idea that can take a team out of the box to an original solution.

Recently, I had the fortuitous accident of running across a TED talk bySir Ken Robinson, a writer, researcher, advisor, teacher, and speaker with a strong focus on creativity. In this TED talk, he said:

"The role of a creative leader is not to have all the ideas; it's to create a culture where everyone can have ideas and feel that they are valued."

As I have mentioned in previous blog posts, it's always sweet when someone I respect makes a statement that validates something I've believed and/or been doing for a while. When it's a person who has worldwide respect in that area of thought, it's even sweeter.

So let me talk a bit about how I go about getting all team members to contribute their ideas.

I start by defining three ground rules for the discussion:

Every legitimate suggestion merits discussion.

No suggestion (or person making the suggestion) can be ridiculed.

A thought we dismissed in the past could be the right course of action today.

Once I have opened a subject for discussion and defined the parameters of the issue, I stop talking and listen to the discussion. I work to be aware of who is contributing and who is not. I try to limit my own talking to moderating the discussion and keeping it on track.

Once I know who is not contributing, I watch those people for clues that signal they have had an idea but need to be coaxed a bit, made comfortable with the idea of speaking up, before they will open up and share that idea.

When I spot someone like that, I recognize them, mention that they look like they have a comment, and ask them specifically what they think of the current idea. They may suggest a small tweak or even an alternative to that possibility, or they may just say they think it's fine.

If they simply agree with the idea, I will ask specifically if they have another alternative to offer. Most of the time, once they have heard their own voice answering the first question, they are less timid about answering my second question.

As I make sure that every person gets to hear his or her own voice, they become more confident each time they are called upon. After varying lengths of time, each of these folks will become so used to contributing that they won't need coaxing.

At that point, I sit down with that person in private and talk about how pleased I am with their progress. Then we talk about another set of measurable goals that can be built upon this new success.

11 August 2015

Have you heard of people who take a client to lunch three or four times, and on the next lunch the client brings a contract?

Have you heard of people who call a client and ask, “what’s next?” and the client gives them a new project?

Have you asked yourself, “Why them? Why not me?”

The answer is: those stories are probably about firms marketing the private sector.

But the public sector doesn’t work that way; it’s “a horse of a different color!”

Public sector procurement for A/E services is governed by law or local ordinance. At the federal level, the Brooks Act (PL 92-582) governs.Section 902 of the Act states:

“The Congress hereby declares it to be the policy of the Federal Government to... negotiate contracts for A/E services on the basis of demonstrated competence and qualification...”

The basic steps in pursuing federal A/E work look something like this:

The agency publishes a solicitation;

Firms submit SF330 forms or proposals demonstrating experience on projects similar to that described in the solicitation;

The agency evaluates submittals;

The agency develops a “short list” (at least three qualified firms) to interview;

The agency interviews and ranks the short-listed firms;

The agency negotiates a scope and fee with the top-ranked firm.

If an agreement on scope and fees cannot be reached, the agency will end the discussion and open negotiations with the next-ranked firm.

Many states, counties, regional transportation and planning entities, and cities have adopted similar processes, although some still require an SF254/255 submittal. Some require only the SF255, because they are only concerned with qualifications relative to the current project.

In most cases (as of this writing), printed submittals are still required.

Contrast this with the private sector, where the client can give you a new project just because you did a good job on the last one!

Standard forms are intended to “level the playing field”for consultants, and make it easier for agency personnel to be objective in evaluating and ranking proposals. But your job as a marketer is to tilt the playing field in favor of your firm or client. Your relationship with the client helps you do this.

“Best value” is a concept developed to let agencies consider the intangibles of the client/consultant relationshipin evaluating SOQs and proposals. When consultants have already worked with the agency, and know the agency’s staff, procedures, standards and quirks, benefits can include cost-effectiveness, timeliness, and freedom from headaches and distractions.

When the consultant team has already worked together, additional benefits involve internal communications, sharing of drawing/design standards and conventions, and ease of working together.

In controlling client expectations, we want to influence the personal filters through which written and spoken communications pass, in order to affect how a client reads our proposal or hears our presentation, leading to selection of our team.

When you visit a client or prospect, you get to meet their staff, build relationships, develop professional credibility, and learn how the agency works, and what it needs and wants (often two different things).

You can also learn about upcoming projects and the client’s expectations and fears for those projects. Thus, you can ensure the person making the selection knows what they need to know in order to select your firm – long before the solicitation appears. When the proposal due date arrives, the client will expect your proposal to be the “best value.”

There are many ways to build and strengthen client relationships, but this post is too short to discuss all the ways public and private sector marketing differ, or all the subtly different colors these “horses” can be. If your firm wants to make a first move into the public sector, don’t be afraid to call an outside consultant like The Siben Consult, LLC, to help you.

30 July 2015

For many years, using a variety of online and print platforms, I have stated my belief that IMS (Integrated Marketing Systems) is the best lead service for the A/E industry for public sector opportunities. I have used other lead services and just didn't feel that I got the benefits I got from IMS.

That is, of course, just my opinion; others may prefer to recommend other lead services. And that's OK.

My main reasons for preferring IMS are:

I can't look at every city, county, state, federal and regional transit agency and airport all by myself. IMS covers the parts of the United States in which I, my current and prospective clients are most interested.

I find IMS to be the most comprehensive service for the states they cover;

I find that they provide the longest advance notice of potential opportunities; and

They update their notifications as new information comes to them.

These last two reasons are the most important for me.

Over the last decade and longer, there has been a lot of talk about the belief that it is pointless to pursue a project for a client who is a stranger, and expect a successful outcome. So that third reason is definitely a game changer for me.

The long advance time provided by IMS—which sometimes amounts to more than 6 months—can give a firm the chance to begin developing a relationship with a potential client long before the RFQ or RFP is issued. So your firm won't be a stranger to that client when your proposal is submitted.

In addition to alerting its subscribers to the future opportunity long in advance, the IMS system continues to research opportunities, and publishes updates when new information about the project is learned.

These updates allow me to revisit my Go/No Go evaluation to see if the project is still worth tracking. This also helps me decide whether or not to continue spending my time and money building and strengthening that client relationship. If the new information turns the project into a "No Go" for my firm, we might want to scale back the frequency of visits and the expenditures related to those visits until another, seemingly more productive, opportunity arises.

I have found that one of the biggest wastes of hours and dollars in the A/E industry involves the pursuit of the wrong projects, for the wrong reasons. The final questions have to be:

Do we want to work with/for this client?

Can we win this project, or is there a strategic reason to pursue if we can't win?

Can we make a profit at the anticipated fee level?

Can the project be built within the client's budget?

Are there public relations benefits to the project?

Are there financial or other potential liabilities if our firm is selected?

In the end, a big factor in a firm's overall profitability involves having a collection of systems and resources that enable the firm to make better decisionsabout how to spend the firm's limited resources—both human and financial resources—in the most effective manner. Any tool that gives a firm more time to make better decisions should be a "must have" item.

For me, IMS gives firms the luxury of time—IMS is the best of the available options.

17 July 2015

In today's A/E industry, where we spend a lot of time worrying about and/or trying to prevent commoditization, we are often told that loyalty no longer exists—that clients are no longer loyal to consultants and vice versa.

Apparently, clients want the consultant that can be bought for the lowest cost and consultants want the clients who can provide the greatest profitability, regardless of how long-standing or successful their relationship has been.

Although it flies in the face of contemporary "wisdom," I still believe in loyalty. I believe it still exists between clients and consultants, in both directions, when the circumstances are right.

First of all, I believe that, no matter what, a consultant must practice a degree of humility, and can't go about always blowing his/her own horn. The client must never be made to feel that the consultant is the star of the piece. In fact, there are many instances where the consultant does the "heavy lifting" and the client gets star billing.

So a certain amount of risk-taking might be necessary and appropriate, but a certain degree of circumspection is also necessary and appropriate.

As David Weber has one of his characters say in "Like a Mighty Destiny,"

". . . while audacity was the handmaiden of success, overconfidence was the handmaiden of disaster."

Second, and equally important, is that promises must be kept. In a number of forums, I have heard clients say that the most important thing they expect from a consultant is:

"Do what you say you're going to do, when you say you're going to do it."

I take this thought hand-in-hand with the prescription "under-promise and over-deliver." The hybrid situation is one where you do more than you promised and deliver it a day early.

On the "win work" side of things,I always try to deliver proposal drafts to my clients the day before the schedule says, and the final files in time to print and deliver the proposal a day before it's due. This gives the client the luxury of additional review and revision time, which is always appreciated.

On the "do work" side,I encourage my clients to schedule their projects so that deliverables can be given to the client before the scheduled time. Whether the client takes the luxury of additional review time or moves the project forward faster is totally up to the client, but the extra time is always appreciated.

In the long run, when a consultant or client delivers what was promised ahead of schedule, it makes the client or owner aware that they might not be able to count on the same behavior from others. Since time is the one commodity that is not replaceable, the benefits of unexpected additional time are rarely underrated.

So the consultant delivering extra time to the client, or the client delivering extra time to the owner, often finds him/herself valued properly, and their services sought after in more cases than not.

After all, we all want to get more than we paid for, and extra time can be the most valuable commodity of all.